


The Wheel Turns Ever Onward

by BardicRaven



Category: Watership Down - Richard Adams
Genre: Character Death, Death, Geass, Gen, Grim Reapers, Immortal Origin Story, Major life changes, Origin Story, life cycles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 11:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16304207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardicRaven/pseuds/BardicRaven
Summary: The Black Rabbit of Inle, is, at the end of it all, a title, rather than a particular rabbit.A brief conversation between the Great Frith and the latest incarnation of the Black Rabbit as to why this is so.





	The Wheel Turns Ever Onward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Edonohana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/gifts).



Once, the Black Rabbit of Inlé was a rabbit like other rabbits. He ran, he fed, he fought with the bucks and mated with the does.

And one day, as all rabbits do, he died. Except, in his case, what happened next was quite different. He never knew why he’d been chosen of all other rabbits by the Great Frith, but instead of rising to join the other rabbits of El-ahrairah’s warren, he found himself standing before the Great Frith himself.

His heart beat fast at the honor, even as he wondered why he was there.

{I have need of a rabbit such as you.}

“Why me, O Great Frith? I am but an ordinary rabbit.”

{And that is why I need you. Because you are only an ordinary rabbit.}

“I… I… don’t understand.”

{Because you have been an ordinary rabbit, you will understand. You will understand the lives of ordinary rabbits. And you will understand the deaths of ordinary rabbits.}

“Why does that matter, O Great Frith?”

{Because you are the new Black Rabbit of Inlé. You are the one who will go to the rabbits and help them along their path, help them run to their new warren with the Prince of Rabbits.}

“M...me?” Surely the notion was preposterous. There was already a Black Rabbit – he’d seen far too many of his friends, his relations, meet up with Him not to know that he already existed.

{Yes. You. I will not ask any one rabbit to take on such a burden for eternity.} A silence filled the air. {It is a heavy burden the Black Rabbit carries. To oversee the deaths of rabbits. Prince with a Thousand Enemies – a name held in truth. Rabbits die from predators, from disease, from old age, from accident. They die a thousand deaths from a thousand different causes, and it will be your job to run with them all.} At Frith’s words, his ears flattened in distress and his feet stamped the danger all unwitting.

{Yes. And that is why I ask no one rabbit to take on this burden forever.} A warmth spread over him and he felt the sunny presence begin to fade. {Now go, Black Rabbit, and run well.}

He felt another call – a doe in distress, one whose distress he was being called to end. He felt himself fade into nothingness and a new awareness fill its place as he began to run to the earth he’d so recently left behind. He was the Black Rabbit of Inlé and he would run alongside the rabbits that were being called to the Prince’s warren until the Great Frith decided he had done enough.

And then, in turn, another would be called, on and on into eternity.

For there are always rabbits, and rabbits always die, and always, the Black Rabbit of Inlé is there to lead them home.


End file.
